THE OTTAWA NATURALIST. - 
WoL, 2XExX. OTTAWA, NOVEMBER, 1905. No. 8 
ON THE FORMATION OF LOCAL COLLECTIONS.* 
In reference to local collections and the study of local natural 
history, one of our older Essex County botanists said, at a field 
meeting of the Essex Institute many years ago, that ‘‘the careful 
study of the flora of a very limited area may well occupy a life- 
time while the results would probably be of more value to science 
than any general work undertaken by the same student.”’ 
There is no better presentation of the need of local collec- 
tions accessible to the public than the article by Prof. Edward S. 
Morse { entitled ‘‘If Public Libraries, why not Public Museums?”’ 
In this paper the author points out how many more public libra- 
ries there are in this country than museums and how much more 
difficult it is to install and maintain a library. And yet there is no 
doubt whatever regarding the great and in some cases even the 
greater educational value of the museum. Referring to museums 
open to the public he says:—‘‘For New England, the fingers of 
one hand could almost count them, and for the rest of this great re- 
public, the fingers of the other hand would be sufficient to keep 
tally.’’ And this in contrast to European countries where nearly 
every large town has its public museum. 
Nor have these conditions materially changed since the 
paper was written in 1893, although new museums have been 
* A paper read at the Field Meeting of the Andover Natural History; 
Society at ‘‘Alderbrook Farm,” in Andover, Massachusetts, July the twen-, 
tieth, nineteen hundred and four, by John Robinson, of the Peabody Museum ; 
in Salem. 
+ Atlantic Monthly, July, 1893, pp. 112-119. 
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